


A Blast From the Past

by Unforth



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Fushigi Yuugi, Slayers (Anime & Manga), Weiß Kreuz
Genre: And the Author's Notes, Crack, F/M, Just Read the Story Description Please?, M/M, Other Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-01
Updated: 2001-01-01
Packaged: 2018-11-04 01:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10980060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/pseuds/Unforth
Summary: Two things I wrote when I was a wee young writer: A short piece I wrote making fun of how needlessly angsty I found Tuxedo Mask and Aya from Weiss Kreuz, and a longer story I never finished that is a cross over between Slayers and Fushigi Yuugi - a "what if" for if Lina Inverse were sucked into the ancient China of FY and turned out to be one of the four Mikos.Don't read these for great literature. And obviously I'm never going to finish them. But if you've got any curiosity about how writers progress...enjoy?





	1. A Case Study on Compatability

**Author's Note:**

> Okay...so...um... *phew* I've been meaning to share some of my older work but the big hurdle in doing so is that very little of it is typed up in any format that I'm still able to access. But a few weeks ago I remembered - I'd posted some fanfic on my anime fan webpage. So it's in HTML, and still completely accessible, with the only work necessary being to find it on my computer.
> 
> I found it. And bonus, I thought there was only one story, but I actually had posted two - which is especially nice since I thought the short one had only been sent as an AIM message and was therefore lost forever.
> 
> But no. It has been preserved! For better or for worse...
> 
> So here ya guys go. I can't recall exactly when I wrote these - the shorter piece (which is Tuxedo Mask x Aya from Weiss Kreuz) was for a friend I didn't meet until fall of 2000, and I think I probably wrote it in fall, 2001? And the other I think I wrote in 1999 or 2000? It's all right around then. For reference, I started college in 2000 and I was 17 years old. So I was guaranteed under 20 when I wrote these.
> 
> I haven't reread them. I haven't edited them. I literally have no touched these in almost 20. fucking. years. Pure, unadulterated young me fanfic. I actually wasn't a big fan of Weiss Kreuz of Sailor Moon, hence a fic mocking them mercilessly, but I was a HUGE Slayers fan and an equally huge Fushigi Yuugi fan back in the day. :)
> 
> I'm breaking this into a couple chapters, FYI.

Topic: Case Study: Compatability   
Subjects: Tuxedo Mask and Aya. Both subjects are known to suffer from SAD (smother Angst disorder) and NPD (no personality disorder)   
Test: The Meeting   
    Tonight's mission was simple - assassinate a minor villain, retrieve the jewel he stole, go home, no big deal. So who was this stupid Sailor Moon bitch who was interfering? Moon jewel, what the hell is she babbling about? And what was she doing, tripping over her own feet during her entrance? Aya’s hand twitched convulsively on the hilt of his katana…the Moon brat would have to be dealt with first, before her speech of justice bullshit pissed him off any worse.   
    Tuxedo Mask waited in the shadows, calculating the wind direction and velocity, so that he'd know exactly where to enter the scene from. If he didn't come in at just the right place, his cloak wouldn't snap back just right, and everyone knew entrances were very important. Lost in thought of trajectories and vectors, he nearly missed Sailor Moons cry of pain. Checking his rose, he leapt out of the shadows into view, his cloak rippling behind him in the wind.   
    A rose flew through the air, and was sliced apart by a flash of light. Tuxedo mask blinked, his night vision ruined, wondering who has so deftly cut his flower. A formidable enemy clearly awaited him. As shapes resolved themselves, he first saw the shape nearest him, a villain of some sort lying in a puddle of blood. Looking down the scene, he next saw the Sailor Scout lying unmoving on the ground, unconscious. A call died in his throat as light flashed again, this time the flash resolved itself into a long katana. He slowly followed the length of the sword to it's owner.   
    Aya was impressed by the man before him. Now, that was an entrance. IT required preparation and thought. He watched the man, though, and was disappointed. He knew how to make an entrance, but damn was his costume stupid. Not like Aya’s own, slick, pre-planned outfit. He stared at the man, and waited for some sort of reaction from him. Nothing happened. Time passed. Nothing happened. Then, like a lightening bolt from the clear sky, their eyes met.   
    Tuxedo Masks eyes follow the katana up it's length, all the way to the face of the man wielding it, and their eyes meet. Aya dropped the sword. Somehow, he understood the man before him. Somehow, everything made sense. All that unnecessary angst had a purpose, for here was a soul mate. Tuxedo Mask stared into Aya's eyes, and saw that there WAS someone with more personality than Sailor Moon in the world, that here was someone who could truly understand him. The katana dropped to the ground as they ran to each others arms, to live happily ever after, wallowing in each others angst and attempting to give each others personality-less existence's meaning.   
Conclusion: Angst Loves Company


	2. Lina Inverse, Genbu no Miko

An Introduction

 

    The sound of silverware clashing on dishes was easily traceable to the table in the corner stacked high with cleaned off platters. It seemed remarkable that any army could have cleared so much food, much the less the two people who appeared to be the only ones at the table. Judging they’re jobs was easy to do, rarely were seen two people whose clothing more betrayed their pursuits. The woman with the long, red hair could be nothing but a sorceress, with her flashy cloak and over-done shoulder guards, and her gaudy orniment…a…tio…n…n

    (“HEY! Who’re you calling gaudy and flashy? Eh??”

    The writer gazed in fear at the very pissed off sorceress before her “Eh? Eh Eh? Eh?” she stuttered out, “Oh, no, not you, I…I…I…” she looked hastily behind her in the hope that someone might be coming up to save her from her current plight, but seeing nothing, she turned back to the dangerous woman before her. She waved her hands in a way that, on the one hand, made her look both helpless and terrified, and on the other hand, attempted to put some distance between her and the immediate threat of the sorceress. “Uh…uh…well, it wasn’t on purpose, musta been a slip of the pen, ever so sorry, I’ll just be correcting that now, no harm done, I mean…yeah,” she broke off in a strange laugh, half terrified and half relieved that punishment for her slip didn’t seem imminent. The sorceress hrmphed, but said nothing.)

    The woman with the long, red hair could be nothing but a beautiful, talented sorceress, with her brilliant fashion sense, and perfect use of magical paraphernalia to counter point the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of…

    (“I think they get the point. You don’t have to turn to plagiarism, just get on with it.”)

    Right. Her companion was just as easily readable, his armor and sword clearly marking him as a swordsman, and likely a very good one if his muscles were any indication, and equally likely a very stupid one, judging from the slightly vacant expression on his face.

    A closer inspection of the table revealed two more people at it, though. Another girl, another sorceress, sat nearly buried by dishes, poking her head out from the stack, looking depressed and annoyed. Next to her, apparently unaware of her situation, completely obscured by the dishes heaped before him on the table, sat a strange, dangerous looking man. He was a creepy one to look at, a swordsman of some sort but otherwise of indeterminate ability. His fear-inspring face was blue and covered in rocks, very grim looking, with light gleaming frighteningly from his metallic hair. He was out of place in this otherwise semi-normal looking group of people, and…a………

    (“OI! What are you trying to do to my image? The word is MYSTERIOUS, not creepy.”)

    …and his mysterious attitude added an air of mystery to the already mysterious circumstances of this group, whose appearance already mystified all who looked in their direction.

    “Gourry!” snapped the red head, the beautiful, gorgeous, talented, full-breasted…

    (BOOM! “Ow!” whined the writer, “what’d you do that for?”

    “Just keep writing,” snaped the sorceress in a grating voice.)

    …sorceress. “You’re treating, right?”

    The mercenary swordsman, Gourry, looked up so quickly that his neck should have cracked. “NA?? But…but…no fair, Lina! What about those thieves you beat up the other day? You could pay for once, ya know…”

    The beautiful, talented sorceress, Lina, laughed evilly. That laugh was a skill she’d learned from an old acquaintance and had found useful time and again. Her hand began to glow faintly. “You’re treating, RIGHT Gourry?” The girl buried in dishes squeaked and tried to move away, shaking plates of her shoulders.

    Only in anime does the action of eyes starting out of a head have a sound effect, and needless to say that effect came through very loudly as Gourry looked at Lina’s glowing hand.

    Lina sat, looking intimidating and dangerous, without turning from Gourry managed to make it clear that she was talking to the girl under the dishes. “Ne, Amelia, stop that or you’ll pay for those dishes…” Amelia squeaked again but stopped moving.

    “Zelgadis,” she tittered, “please protect me, please…” No one responded.

    Gourry eyed Lina’s hand, considered how serious she was about blowing up the inn over the tab, decided she mightvery well be completely serious, and reached a decision in what was, for him, amazing speed. “No, no, no, nevermind, this meal’s my treat, always nice eating with you, Lina, always a pleasure, get lots of food, and…and…WAITER! I’m paying, hurry up!” Gourry laughed nervously, giving a relieved sigh as the flowing faded. Amelia relaxed too, causing a few more plates to crash off her shoulders to the floor.

    In the silence that followed, the mysterious, blue skinned man, Zelgadis, finally spoke, in a mysterious voice, adding his input to the whole situation. “Baka.”

 

The Story Begins

 

    Nervously, the writer decided to change the topic. She picked up her pen and started writing. She was not sure why she had written the introduction, but it didn’t seem to hurt anything. Still, sometimes curiosity overwhelmed prudence, and this was one of those times. “Hey, why’d I write that?” the writer asked, “I mean, no one’s gonna be reading this if they don’t know who you guys are already…”

    “Mrpmh! Mrmph,” Lina boasted. “Trmph srmph frmph mrmph grmph…”

    “’I know!’” Amelia said on cue, not liking her job as translator one bit, “’I’m so famous everyone hates me!’” Lina almost choked on her food, and blue slowly washed over Amelia’s face. “Erm…that’s not it, she said…uh…I mean…'I’m so famous everyone knows me.' Yeah, that was it…heh heh heh…” She tried to smile innocently and ignore the glare from Lina.

    “Yeah,” Zelgadis muttered to Gourry, “as Dragon Spooker and Bandit Killer.” Gourry’s expression answered this assertion with a plea to not involve him.

    “WRMPH?” Lina hissed.

    Amelia started to translate, but Zelgadis waved at her to stop. “I can guess that one,” he said, taking a sip of tea, showing his utter disinterest in Lina’s annoyance. “I didn’t say anything at all, Lina, not a thing,” he smirked. “Anyway, explain to me again why we’re dealing with this stupid writer? I didn’t quite get it the first time,” he glared at Amelia for her lack of translating skills and at the writer, who was attempting to cower behind her pen.

    “Mrmph mrmph hrmph trmph mrmph,” Lina retorted, looking very irritated that she had to repeat herself.

    Annoyance finally over came his serenity, and Zelgadis found himself snapping at her. “Lina! Take the damn chicken wing out of your mouth and try that AGAIN!” He rounded on the writer and yelled at her, “How could you feed her?? You aughta know how unmanagable she gets when she’s eating!”

    “S…s…s…so…sorry!” squeaked the writer. “I’ll…I’ll never do it again!”

    “MRMPH!” Lina snarled.

    “I give up!” Zel said, throwing up his hands in despair. “I’m just never gonna figure out what the hell is going on around here!” Worry filled Amelia’s eyes, this wasn’t the Zel she was used too, he had way to much emotion.

    Swallowing a large chunk of food, Gourry spoke for the first time since the writer placed food in front of them. “She said, ‘Food or Dragon Slave,’” the writer discovered her own eyes didn’t, in fact, have an anime eye popping noise.

    “And before that, she said ‘Zel, I’ll explain again after I finish eating,” Amelia added, hoping to redeem herself for her previous translation errors. “Right, Lina san?”

    Lina bobbed her head in agreement. “Mrmph,” she declared.

    Zel’s sweat drop was only vaguely able to fill the silence that this declaration brought.

    The rest of the meal finished before anyone bothered to fill the silence. The writer toyed with her pen and prayed that no one would decide to cast dragon slave, or rah tilt, or any other magic, cause things could get messy. “SO!” said Lina, slamming down the mug she had just finished chugging, “What did you want to hear again, Zel?”

    “What are we doing here?” Zel asked.

    “And where is ‘here’?” Amelia jumped in.

    “And when is dinner?” Gourry cheerfully added.

    The crash that followed left the writer cringing. “That was my favorite chair, Lina san!” she cried.

    Brushing her hands off on her pants, Lina shrugged and turned away from the chair, and Gourry underneath it. “Tough luck,” disinterest oozed through her voice, “live with it.”

    “But…”

    “We’re paying you to write,” Lina reminded her firmly, giving her an evil look, “not talk. Shut up.”

    Teeth clicked as the writer slammed her mought shut. “Mm mm mmm,” she mumbled, lips glued shut. She deftly dodged the chair thrown at her, picked up her book, and started writing again. The room around them faded and they found themselves in a bustling town, standing in front of a large building with a façade of columns and carvings.

    In classic form, Lina became serious with hardly a transistion from her silliness. “Where are we?” she repeated the question presented her, as Amelia tried to ponder the scene change. “We’re at the national library of Saillune.”

     “Wow!” Amelia gasped in awe, “it looks so…national!” No one noticed the writers sweat drop. No one laughed, either.

    “Why are we here?” she turned to Zel. “That’s a longer story.” She thwapped the writer, knocking the sweat drop for a loop. “Keep writing, this is important.”

    “M, mmmmm m!” the writer managed through closed lips. She didn’t succeed in dodging the chair a second time.

    They wandered into the library, and the writer scurried to catch up, wincing at the large lump on her forehead. The library was immense on the inside, larger than it had appeared on the outside, and seemed entirely composed of large mazes of book-lined corridors. They meandered in and out of the hall ways, Amelia and Gourry convinced they were walking in circles, until they finally stopped in front of a room with a sign outside of it. “Important Documents Reference Room,” the sign labeled the room to be.

    “Na, Lina, what’s going on?” Gourry looked like his usual confused self, for as far as hi sense of direction could tell they should be standing about 10 feet above the place they had started, outside the library.

    “Jellyfish for brains,” she snapped in response, “I’m working on it…” she turned to Zel. “Can you pick that lock?”

    “Hn.”

    “Then do so, I’ll explain the background for this story so stupid here will get some idea what’s going on,” she said with a vague gesture, which could have referred to Gourry, Amelia, or the writer.

    “A while ago, when I was first studying magic, I found a book in this room called ‘The Universe of Four Gods.’ It was a magical story, which drew girls into itself in order to bring about the summoning of said four gods.” She smiled, and with faux modesty brushed her hair from her face. “This beautiful, talented sorceress fought the spell off and was able to read the book without being drawn into it.” She grinned with pride for her abilities.

    Zel was unimpressed. “And?” he said, pushing the door to the room open. Everyone walked in and Lina headed over to one particular shelf and looked for a book. “What does that have to do with us being here, now, Lina?”

    “I’m getting there,” she replied with a withering look, which left Zelgadis unphased though had Amelia withering a bit, “I was getting to that. The book had a lot of unnecessary plot turns, lots of unpleasantness, but ultimately what struck me was the existance of an object in this world, called the Shinzaho! It’s a jewel of unparalelled worth and magical power!” Lina’s eyes glowed with undisguised desire.

    The thud that followed this declartation was caused by everyone falling in a heap around Lina. “Lina san…!” despaired Amelia, picking herself up slowly.

    “I’m afraid to ask what’s coming next…” Zelgadis’ tone was resigned, for he knew he didn’t need to ask, it was that obvious.

    Confused, but clearly determined to stay by Lina’s side, Gourry stood up and placed himself next to Lina protectively. A breeze materialized out of no where to blow back Lian and Gourry’s long hair dramatically, a perfect accent to her final announcement. “Our goal! To enter the world of this book, and to obtain the Shinzaho! The only prerequisite to obtaining it is to make sure the people in the book don’t need it themselves!” Heaving a sigh, the writer finally finished the last sentence and prepared to get up off the floor, only to hit her head on feet about twelve inches above her. She whimpered and sank back to the floor.

    “Hello!”

    Absurd, disbelieving laughter bubbled out of Lina. “Gourry?”

    “Na?”

    “Tell me I didn’t just hear that.”

    “You mean we’re not going into that book?” he asked hopefully.

    Lina fought off rising exasperation and tried to sink further into denial. “No, no, after that.”

    “Lina san, what’s wrong?”

    Shaking her head in disbelief, Lina pulled Gourry’s sleeve. “See, again, just now. Tell me you didn’t hear that!”

    A lightbulb of understanding lit, for once, above Gourry’s head. “Oh! you mean Xellos!” Gourry was excited that he’d caught what she was talking about for once. “Okay, I’ll tell you I didn’t hear Xellos,” he said, holding up one finger in classing Xellos style, hinting at secret knowledge. “But…” the moment of clarity was fading. “I did hear him, Lina, I mean…” he fumbled, knowledgable finger dropping to his side. Turning to the source of the voice, his eyes followed the floating form from just above the lump on the writers head all the way to the top of the staff clutched in the forms hand. “Ahh! Xellos!” a somehow surprised Gourry pointed incredulously at the mysterious priest. For a long moment, this announcement hung in the air, leaving everyone in a shocked silence, not broken until Lina punched Gourry.

    “BAKA! I told you not to tell me he was here!!!” she shouted. She might have continued in a tirade, but she was interrupted by Amelia.

    “Xellos, what are you doing here?” she demanded shrilly.

    With his trademarked smirk, no one ever did it better, Xellos proved Gourry a pale comparison as he held up a finger and announced, “Sore wa himitsu desu!” he enjoyed the expressions on everyones faces; Lina annoyed, Gourry puzzled, Amelia distressed, Zelgadis angry, and the writer upset at how much more writing a fifth character would require.

The Story Stalls

 

    “So,” Lina spat, flicking a scrap of food at a passerby. They’d left the library to go get food because, according to Lina, they might as well get something to eat before they entered the book. No one had any doubt that her real hope was to get some information out of Xellos before having anything to do with him. “What are you doing here, why now, and what do you want?”

    Knowing how much it would piss her off, he smirked again. “Lina san, you aughta know it’s not that easy. The only information I can currently give you is that you’re not ready for your trip yet.”

    “Xellos!” Zelgadis shouted in his face loud enough that Xellos’ hair shifted a little under the onslaught. “We’re not going to play your games AGAIN! Tell us now or leave!”

    “Third time’s the charm,” was the snide reply. Ignoring the growls that comment received him, he sighed. “Lina, maybe you’ll figure it out if you consider what you know about the book.”

    With a considering frown, Lina tapped her finger on the table and tried to figure out what he might be refering to. “Well,” she started summing up her thoughts rapidly. “First, if I don’t support the efforts of the god Suzaku, it’s impossible to get the Shinzaho. Second, with the destruction of their copy of ‘The Universe of Four Gods,’ it is impossible for the priestess of Suzaku to summon Suzaku without aid.” She paused. “So what does that mean? I think it means…damn!”

    “What is it, Lina san?” munching on her lunch, Amelia listened with only half an ear to what Lina was saying.

    “In the story, some of the seven seishi of Suzaku die. If that happens, the priestess’ ability to summon Suzaku will again be lost almost completely. That means…” her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like how her simple plan to get the Shinzaho was rapidly getting more complicated. “That means we can’t let any of the Suzaku shichi seishi die. Shit.”

    “Suzaku shichi seishi? huh?” Gourry spoke around the swallowing of food. “Sorry, I wan’t paying attnetion.” He ripped another bite of meat and set to chewing.

    Lina sighed, but remarkably didn’t get annoyed. “The Suzaku shichi seishi, mystical warriors of Suzaku, are required for the Suzaku no miko, the priestess of Suzaku, to summon the bird god. All their powers combined, added to the power of the scroll of ‘The Universe of Four Gods,’ enable Suzaku to enter the priestess and allows her to make three wishes. There are, of course, shichi, seven, seishi, named Tamahome, Hotohori, Nuriko, Chichiri, Tauski, Mitsukake, and Chiriko. The problem is, four of them die in the course of the story.” Still considering all the issues involced, she continued, “But I don’t see why it’s much of a problem. If we warp in, save the scroll, and give it back to Suzaku’s people, they can do whatever they want, and we can take the Shinzaho and everyone will be happy.”

    “No, Lina san,” Xellos was disappointed. He’d really been hoping she’d figure out more of it than that, but she’d only scratched the surface, and hadn’t even hinted at what actually needed to happen. Mentally, he frowned, wondering how he could push the agenda without actually telling her.

    Eyebrows twitching in annoyance also enjoy the luxury of a sound effect in anime, as it turned out. Lina’s eyebrow twitched convulsively. “What do you mean by that, Xellos? Everything will be fine.”

    No help for it, Xellos decided, and told her a piece of the problem, reasoning that after all, it was only a small piece. “The priestess is not ready to summon Suzaku until the time she does, at the end of the story. If she tried before that, she’d be consumed by the great bird and would die. The deaths of her friends, the sacrifices they make, everything that she experiences are what enable her to grow strong enough to survive the summoning.”

    “I don’t care if she lives or dies, I just want the damn Shinzaho!” Lina stamped her foot, acting the spoiled brat, but everyone knew she wouldn’t let someone just die for her own gain, not when that person was on the good side. “I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it!” The groups collective sweat drop was all that got her to stop whining.

    There seemed to be nothing more to say on the topic. Xellos was again disappointed that his dropping a little information had not gotten her to further consider the issue, and he could only hope that her continued desire for the Shinzaho would mean that she didn’t give up completely on thinking about it. As far as Lina thought, the Shinzaho was out of reach, there was no longer any reason to be in Saillune, and besides it was an expensive town, and why waste money?

    They wandered out of the city and headed out for some adventure somewhere, Xellos still tagging along, the writer still taking note of everything that happened. When no one was looking, Xellos patted his cloak, and the book hidden in it, deciding with a satisfied smile that everything was working out close to plan. Time passed.

The Story Changes Venues

 

    The tugging at the back of her mind kept Miaka from concentrating. The food before her just couldn’t hold her attention, and Yui, Taka, Keisuke, and even Tetsuya, everyone was beginning to look worried.

    “Miaka…” Yui considered how to ask her why she wasn’t stuffing her face. No way occurred to her that she felt fully comfortable saying, though. Ever since they were drawn into the book the last time, she’d been uncomfortable with Taka around. In addition, a twitch of sorts, nagging at her brain, kept distracting her.

    When Yui didn’t finish her sentence, Taka seized the initiative. “Miaka, are you feeling alright?” he asked, with his usual concern for her.

    Yui’s voice hadn’t jolted Miaka out of her reverie, but Taka’s sure did. “What? Oh! Sorry, yeah, I’m fine, no problem.” Her nostril’s filled with the scent of the hot food before her, and she pushed the tugging out of her thoughts, reducing it to background noise. “Itadakimasu!”

    The conversation followed different avenues for the rest of the meal, and both Miaka and Yui managed to forget about the distraction in their minds. They all had fun just being with each other, though as always Keisuke felt left out whenever Tetsuya made mooneyes at Yui or Taka offered Miaka food from his own fork. Everyone in a couple but him, that was hardly fair.

    School work had been forgotten during the meal, so it wasn’t until Miaka exclaimed “Yui! We have to do that research at the library!” that they remembered. The mental nagging intensified, but they both forced it from their heads. No more procrastinating, they thought almost simultaneously.

    “Yeah! Well, then, let’s get going!” answered Yui. She’d didn’t really want to, she’d much rather have skipped the research and hung out more, but she knew how hard Miaka was working for good grades, and she wouldn’t do anything to counteract that effort. “See you later, guys!”

    “But…we have expereince with researching! We’ll help!” Tetsuya fished desperately for an excuse to go with them.

    Resisting the urge to smack his forehead at how obvious Tetsuya was being, Keisuke hurriedly backed him up. “There was a point when we did a lot of research at the library, we might be able to help…”

    Miaka and Yui exchanged a look. They knew that the time the two had done research was while they were in “The Universe of Four Gods,” but weren’t quite sure how to respond to them. “Uh…” Miaka shrugged. “Well…” Yui considered. “Sure!” they said simultaneously.

    “So what’re you guys researching?” Taka asked. It was just sort of assumed he was coming along at that point.

    By the end of the walk, her regreted asking the question. The answer was long, confusing, and dull. It was all so involved it left his head swimming. And he reminded himself that Yotsubadai was the easier highschool, making his head hurt even worse. Oh well, nothing to worry about, the library has everything, he told himself.

    They all spent several hours hunting through the card catalogues and bookshelves of the library, finding nothing. Yui and Miaka were both acting short tempered though neither would explain why. While Keisuke and Tetsuya came to the conclusion it was woman’s problems, Taka wasn’t so sure, and looked at them with increasing worry as the evening went on. Neither would admit that the problem was actually this weird tugging at their brains, which had grown into pounding head aches since they had left the restaurant.

    They were all giving up hope of finding anything until finally Keisuke found a reference to the topic in an old book. The reference took the form of an even older book that was being discussed. When he asked the people at the information desk about the older book, he was told that it was in the libraries collection but he would need special permission to access it because it was in the libraries “Imporant Documents Refence Room.”

    A cold shiver went down his spine. He really, really didn’t want to go back to that room, but…”So what’re we gonna do?” he asked the girls.

    “Well,” Yui said, flicking a enad over her temple in the hopes it might help her head ache, “we have to do this project, so we better go up there.” Miaka nodded her agreement. Her headache faded a bit, a welcome relief from the dull thudding that had been pounding behind her eyes.

    They got the key to the room without problem, and went up to it. Miaka thought it kind of unnecessary that all five of them go to find one book, but after considering the issue for a moment she was glad that Taka was near by. The room gave her the creeps, all the trouble she went through because of “The Universe of Four Gods.”

    Nothing happened, though. Miaka and Yui’s headaches dulled a bit, to their pleasure, making them both much more companiable, and the search for the book went off without a hitch. As they left, though, Miaka turned to close the door and noticed a book lying on the floor. Assuming one of them must of knocked it down by accident as they were looking around, she turned back into the room, calling everyone to a halt. “Wait just a second, I’m gonna put that book away.” Relief that nothing weird had happened in the room had her nearly skipping over to the book, and she picked it up without even looking at it. The instant her hand touched it, though, it began eminating a weird blackish light. “WHAT?” she tried to drop it, but she couldn’t.

    “Miaka!” Taka cried in classic form.

    Everyone ran to Miaka and tried to pull the book from her hand, but they couldn’t. Her other hand, shaking in fear, turned the book so that the binding faced up. “The Universe of Four Gods.”

    “How?” she asked in a wavering voice. “How can this be here? Didn’t it disappear? I saw it disappear!!”

    For a long moment the question hung in the air, but the moment couldn’t last forever. The book fell open in her grip, and the black light engulfed them.

    A security guard investigating a weird shout from the Reference room found nothing but a book open on the ground.

    “At least my headache is gone,” Miaka said.

The Story Picks Itself Up of it’s Ass

 

    Lina thwaped the writer. “Hey, are you paying attention? Keep writing, keep writing!” They had left Saillune more than a month ago, and the time had passed slowly in the beating up of random groups of bandits and other such stuff. The writer was just starting to get sick of it all, and rarely bothered taking note of it.

    “Lina san,” the writer pointed out reasonable. She’d also begun to grow a back bone recently. “This story is down for the count, in the dumps, dead even, sitting on its ass, doing nothing.” She considered the tavern they were in, and amended that statement. “Or rather, sitting on its ass, eating.”

    Ripping another bite from her lunch, Lina thought about that. “So…” she swallowed, “so there’s no reason for you to be here?” The writer nodded. “So…there’s no reason for me to keep paying you?” Lina pulled a fangs smile on the writer.

    “No, Lina san,” the writer said sadly, swallowing hard. Her backbone was still in the developmental stage, and things like fangs grins tended to send it running. “Exactly, Lina san. But I was wondering if, perhaps, I could, maybe, ya know, keep tagging along?” the writer looked hopeful. “You don’t have to pay me or anything, but this’ll give me something to do, for a change…”

    A raised eyebrow from the chimaera caused the writer to flinch. “Why would we want you around?” he asked. “Do you fight?” she shook her head. “Use magic?” Shook her head. “Use any weapon?” and again. “Are you useful in ANYWAY?”

    Backbone crumbled, the writer held up her pen and in a quavering voice said, “Uh, well, I write, ya know?”

    “Yes!” Justice flared in Amelia’s eys. “You can spread the word of our deeds to the world, the noble bard, writing and telling of the greatness of the justice in our hearts…” She started to go off on a rather annoying justice shpiel.

    “Amelia?” Lina interrupted.

    “Ne?”

    “Shut up.”

    “Hai.”

    “Writer, when are you leaving?”

    “Uhh…” the writer swallowed hard.

    With a sigh, Gourry interrupted, much to the writer’s relief. “Isn’t that Sylphiel?”

    “Where? Where? Where?” Lina asked. Sylphiel was such a wonderful healer that she was always useful to have around. Xellos, uninterested in the writer debate, smiled. Pieces were falling into places, slowly but surely. “Sylphiel!” Lina called out.

    The young healer, wandering by the inn, heard the familiar voice come floating through the door. “Lina san?” she whispered. She stuck her head into the dining room and, spotting Lina and the whole gang in there, smiled happily. “Lina san!" Running to the table, she hugged Lina effusively, ignoring her blush. “Lina san, I was looking for you!”

    Shaking Sylphiel off her, Lina looked surprised and confused. “You were?”

    Nod, nod. “Yeah, and all the rest of you. I had a really weird experience! I had to seek you out cause, well, I was told to!”

    “What are you talking about?” Zelgadis asked.

    “I’m getting there!” She replied. “I was told by this ghost to find Lina and tell her that…oh, what was it?” she scratched her head, trying to remember. “Sorry, it was a long time ago now…I’ve been looking for you all over the place since then!”

    “Sylphiel,” tapping the table, Lina looked impatient. “SPIT IT OUT!”

    Sylphiel jumped. “Right, yes, of course! I remember,” she cleared her throat, and in an imitation of a sepulchre voice she said, “If you want the Shinzaho, read the book.”

    Expecting something uninteresting, Lina’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she heard the word ‘Shinzaho.’ Even a month later, her interest in it was, as Xellos had expected, unabated. “What? What? What? What? I can still get it? How?” Rarely was Lina seen to be so attentive.

    “Shinzaho?” A puzzled Gourry scratched his head. “Wasn’t that the thing Xellos said you couldn’t get?” All eyes turned to Xellos.

    Lina grabbed Xellos’ shirt and shook him a bit. “How do you figure telling me I can’t get it. Huh? Huh?”

    “But Lina san,” Xellos replied, smoothing out his shirt after disengaging himself from her. “I never said you couldn’t get it, I said you couldn’t get it by interfereing with Suzaku’s priestess.”

    Veins popped on Zelgadis’ forehead. “Are you EVER gonna stop screwing with us?? HUH? Well???”

    “But…” Amelia and Gourry had matching confounded expressions, though Amelia was the one who had spoken. “How can she get the Shinzaho?”

    Xellos had just started voicing his catch phrase when an evil laugh bubbled out of Lina. “I think I see,” she said in a frightening voice. Clearly she wasn’t all too happy with what she had figured out, yet just as obviously she thought it would work. “Only a priestess of an animal god can get a Shinzaho. If I want a Shinzaho, I have to become a miko.”

    Hiding how impressed he was at how quickly Lina had figured it out once presented with only one new piece of information, Xellos concluded that she must have been giving it a lot of thought in the past month. “Exactly, Lina san. Follow the rules of the book to get what the book offers.””

    A flung out finger froze Xellos in place. Lina’s eyes pinned him. “FIREBALL!”

    “Cruel, Lina san!”

    “If you knew, you should have said something, you Mazoku bastard…”

    He sniffed. “Well, it’s a good thing I kept this under my cloak for safety,” he pulled a book out of his cloak. “Otherwise you’d be back at square one.”

    “The Universe of Four Gods!” Lina exclaimed.

    “What’s it doing here?” Gourry asked. “Wasn’t it in Saillune? Huh?”

    No one bothered to answer that particular question, Gourry worked it out when he saw Lina, Zel and Amelia’s pointed stares at Xellos. Meanwhile, poor Sylphiel just looked completely confused. The writer quickly brought her up to date on the story, and everyone considered what they knew, which only left her confused about who the writer was.

    “So what are you going to do, Lina?” Zel asked.

    A mysterious light twinkled in Xellos’ suddenly open eyes. “Before you read it, you aughta know, you’ve received mazoku aid, and something will be asked in return…”

    Eyes narrowing, Lina picked the book up. “You’re welcome to try, Xellos, but I won’t give the mazoku anything, especially not one of the my wishes…”

    “We’ll see.”

    Gently turning the pages of the ancient book, Lina began to read aloud. “Herein contains the tale of a young lady who gathered the seven stars of Genbu…” she blinked. She knew Genbu had already been summoned, but there had been evidence that a sacred beast could be summoned again…she supposed that evidence must have been accurate. “…and gained the ability to make all her wishes come true.” She paused, then took a deep breath and continued. She knew this was the only way to get the Shinzaho, there was no choice. “The story itself is an incantation, and if you, the esteemed reader, should read to the end of the story, the spell contained within the book shall bestow upon you the powers of the heroine, and grant you a wish. For indeed, the moment the page is turned, the story will become reality.” Lina turned the page. Black rays shot from the book and engulfed her.

    “Lina!” Gourry cried. He grabbed for the book, planning to try and grab it from her hand, but failing that he just grabbed hold. Within seconds, so had everyone else. The blackness engulfed everyone at the table.

    The innkeeper was very annoyed that the pigs at table four had left without paying their tab. He didn’t believe for an instant the wild story the other patrons were spewing about a book, black rays of ‘light’ and mazoku.

The Story Lines Collide

 

    “Where am I?” a momentraily confounded Lina slowly picked herself up off the cold ground. The familiar inn surroundings were gone, replaced by a wind swept field and a cold-looking mountain range which lined the horizon in all directions. “Well, I don’t think we’re in Saillune any more.” It caught her attention that there was an error in her previous sentence, for apparently there was no ‘we’ involved in her current situation. “Gourry?” she called. A sheep in the field looked up at her in response, but she hit it and it wisely decided to leave her alone. “Gourry…!” Still not answer. She sighed unhappily. “Baka,” she whispered sadly.

    She wasn’t sure what to do next, so she went back to the place where she first woke up and looked around, trying to figure out where she should go from there. Something on the ground caught her attention, and she leaned over and picked it up. It was the copy of “The Universe of Four Gods” that she’d used to get there. Considering this out loud, she said to no one in particular, “this might be useful…” Something nagged at her, though. What could it be? “ahh! If this is here, how can I get home? Dammit!” The sheep didn’t seem to care.

    “Hey, lady, if you can’t get home anyway, maybe you should just come with us!” A calloused hand grabbed onto her shoulder and an ugly face stared into hers, leering. The hand moved away abruptly as the eyes looked her up and down. “Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed, “no resale value on this one at all, never mind…” his eyes lingered on her chest several seconds too long. “Come on, guys, lets…”

    “OI!” Lina’s eyebrows twitched, and as the man turned around slowly, he was surprised to see veins popping on her forehead. “Fireball!” The man and those behind him were engulfed by a very pretty sphere of flames. “Oh, much better!” she giggled and approached the head loser who lay, unmoving, on the ground.

    “So, no RESALE VALUE, HUH?” bubbling evil laughter echoed eerily from Lina, and the sheep decided to leave rather quickly. A rustling behind her was all that kept her from further beating up the bastards, as she turned around abruptly to see if there were any more guys she could blow up coming out. What she saw was not something readily explodable, though. “Gourry? Gourry! You’re here too!” She smiled, inexplicably very, very happy. It only lasted a second though, as she paused in thought for a moment then added, “What the hell are you dong here?” A moments more consideration and examination of the situation had her noticing a weird light coming from Gourry’s forehead. “Huh?”

    He was the usual Gourry, already shrugging to show his utter lack of knowledge of how he got to be there, except there was something wrong. A black glow eminated fro his forehead and a kanji character which half showed through from underneath his blonde hair spelled out…something. Lina couldn’t quite make it out. Puzzled completely, Lina decided that it looked like the kanji for baka! What the hell was that doing there, she wondered…Gourry did his best to offer an explanation of his presence, not noticing that Lina was considering other things. “Well…you were disappearing in to the light from the book so I grabbed the book so that you wouldn’t go away but it didn’t work. I was wandering around for a while after that, trying to figure out where you went, when I heard you shout ‘Fireball’ so I knew where you were!” beaming happily at his ability to lovate her, he eyed the men lying on the ground twitching slightly. “Course, you didn’t need my help, so maybe I’ll just be going,” he always felt kinda bad when Lina dealt with something without any aid from him. He wanted to protect her, too…well, if she could handle it on her own, it meant he was unneeded.

    He turned to go, and Lina stopped him abruptly. “Jellyfish for brains!” she grabbed his arm and pulled him around. The character was gone from his forehead, she noticed, taken aback. Had it really been the kanji for baka? “Where’re you going, stupid? We gotta figure out what’s going on here! Let’s go!”

    “Where?” was the dumb reply. Lina was about to give it the sort of answer deserved by the question when it occurred to her that it was a valid point.

    “I don’t know,” she said. She eyed the still forms of the slavers. “But not here.”

    Picking a random direction, Lina and Gourry started walking. Lina tried to convince herself that she WASN’T very, very glad to see Gourry, but eventually she gave up on that. She was very glad to see him, and denying that wouldn’t accomplish anything, happy that he was in the world of the book with her. And slowly it dawned on her that if Gourry had a character on his forehead, he was her main seishi!

    They walked in silence in the direction they had chosen, towards the largest mountain on the horizon. It wasn’t a particularly distant mountain, and they reached it within a few hours. As soon as they noticed that the terrain had become more up than over, they stopped.

    “Lina,” Gourry started, “I don’t think we should bother climbing this thing unless there is the promise of food when we reach the other side.” He eyed the snow covered mountain slopes with obvious distaste.

    Nodding her agreement, Lina also eyed the mountain, and its peak. “I have a hunch,” she look mystified, unsure where this hunch had originated, or why she felt she should follow it. “Just a feeling, that past this mountain is where we need to go.”

    Since Gourry always followed Lina’s lead, that comment was all it took, and they started up the mountain. The trek was hard, the ice-slicked slopes not lending themselves to being climbed. The air got colder, the view got better, the climb became more difficult, the peak still seemed far away.

    When they finally reached the top, they were cold and tired, but just as they were about to settle down, something caught Lina’s eye. At the very top of the mountain, a grave marker was jammed hard into the ice. A body lay, perfectly preserved, almost visible, saved by the adverse climate. Lina and Gourry were not sure what to make of this body, but they paid their respects at the grave none the less, then the settled down for a break.

    After a short while, the cold was starting to get to them, and Lina stood up to get moving again, looking forward. Beyond the mountain, she could see what looked like a city in the distance. They were just starting off when Lina heard a sound from down the moutain face they were about to start down.

    “What was that?” she hissed.

    Gourry shook his head to show he had no idea, and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. He bagan to circle in one direction to investigate, and Lina circled in the other direction. Down and around, she found herself looking at a plateau just below the peak, and a heavily bound door.

    A door? She stared at it incredulously, trying to figure out why the hell there might be a door way up on a mountain. She wondered if it might be realted to the grave in the ice. Either way, she couldn’t make any sense of it. Aside from putting a door up on a mountain, who put a grave up on a mountain?

    Momentarily forgetting the sound she had heard, she started towards to door to try and figure out its significance. It drew her, somehow. She caught herself just short of walking right up to it, just as the she heard the sound again. It sounded like….a sneeze?

    From the side Gourry had circled from, he couldn’t make out the door because of the mounds of snow, and before him was a really, really large boulder. Larger than any person, the boulder was half buried in snow, yet somehow looked as if it had been moved to that spot at some time in the past, not that long ago. And sitting in the shadow of the rock…

    “Sylphiel?” Gourry’s voice floated to Lina from the other side of the clearing, bringing a slight flush of jealousy. What was it with that girl and Gourry?? She went over to investigate, ignoring the jealousy, just in time to see Sylphiel get up and throw herself at Gourry, arms around his neck.

    “Gourry sama!” she exclaimed. He looked surprised, to say the least, and tried to shake her off. Lina made a bit of extra noise in the snow, to let it been seen that Gourry wasn’t alone, and Sylphiel turned and saw her. “Lina san!” disengaging from Gourry, she wondered why she felt embaressed about flinging herself at him like that.

    “Sylphiel, how did you get up here?” Lina was trying hard to fight down her annoyance with Sylphiel. She hated to admit it, but she knew in her heart that she loved Gourry, and seeing someone act that way with him bothered her a lot. It’s only jealousy, she told herself sternly, and she shouldn’t let it bother her so much. But it did.

    Sylphiel shrugged, interrupting Lina’s train of thought. “I don’t know!” After the black light came from the book, I found myself staring at this door! I wasn’t at all sure where to go from here, so I thought I’d stay here and see what happened.” A considering frown crossed her face. “Now that I think about it, that was a really bad idea, but it seemed to make sense at the time. Still, I was pretty cold, I was gonna leave for that city pretty soon. So now what, Lina?”

    “Hmmm….” Lina looked thoughtful, and gazed at the mountain peak. “I say we go back up there and try to figure out how far it is to that city we saw.” Gourry nodded his agreement.

    Back on the peak, Lina considered the distance to the city they saw, trying to decide if they could make it before dark, or when she guessed dark would be. She realized that even if they couldn’t, they’d have to start out. It probably got cold enough at night to kill them on this mountain peak, especially since they weren’t dressed for the climate. And anyway, she realized, her stomach was already unhappy. A night without food after all the walkng would leave her stomach feeling even more empty, and that would never do.

    She and Gourry spent more than a half hour mapping out a route based on their view, and in that time Sylphiel was investigating the grave. The form beneath the ice seemed remarkably well preserved, and Sylphiel decided that if she could get it out of the ice, she would be able to ressurect it person without any difficulty. Ever since the destruction of Sairaag, she couldn’t bear not to provide aid when she was able. Decision made, she cast a little flare arrow (finally finding a use for her less than adequate black magic abilities) and used it to melt down the ice, careful not to singe the body or injure it in anyway.

    It took her nearly 30 minutes to thaw out the body completely. When Sylphiel was sure she was done, she concetrated for a long moment, hands over the body; light gathered between her hands and the still form beneath her. Just as Lina turned around to tell her they were leaving, she cast the spell. “Resuurection!” The white magic danced beneath her hands, and a black kanji character shone on her neck. Lina’s jaw dropped.

    Sylphiel fell away from the man’s body in a near faint, only to be caught by Gourry, who cleared the space between them in remarkable speed. “Sylphiel, what the hell are you doing?” Lina snapped. “We’re in a straneg world, lost, unsure how we’ll be received, how much of our magic works, what we’re doing here. We’re on the top of mountain with a strange door, god knows why this person was buried here, and you decide what, to desecrate a grave?! What if that person was sacred or something? What the hell were you thinking??”

    “He looked sad,” Sylphiel looked tired, but sure that what she had done was right. That spell had taken a lot out of her. “And it seemed something I had to do. I hope it worked,” was the earnest conclusion to her brief explanation.

    The argument might have continued if it weren’t for the interruption of a light, male voice. “Hello…?” All three turned to see the man, no longer dead, sitting up with a confused expression on his face. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I was wondering if you know what’s become of Miaka…I mean Suzaku no Miko?”

Screw the Story, Nuriko is Alive!

No, this is not a new chapter, just a comment from the writer.

    “Miaka?” Gourry asked, puzzled. “Who’s that? I…”

    Lina interrupted him before he said anything truly stupid. “I’m afraid we can’t help, we’re rather new here.” The truth was, she knew exactly what happened, but couldn’t think how to explain it all. And Lina wondered how much time had passed in the book world. She knew time worked differently between Suzaku no Miko’s world and the world of the Four Gods, but she wasn’t sure how either of those time lines might relate to her own world. Oh well, that was all tangential any way. “In fact, you probably know a lot more than we do, we’ve never been here before.”

    Perhaps if he hadn’t just been brought back from the dead, the man might have realized that the three people before him might just have been in very strange circumstances, having wandered onto a mountain without even knowing what nation they were in. He also might have noticed their strange clothing and manner. However, his mind was still a bit foggy, so he instead replied, “This is Hokkan.” He paused, shook his head an cleared some of the fog. “My name is Nuriko, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”

    They all took care of introductions hastily, then Lina helped Sylphiel stand up and Gourry helped Nuriko to do the same, and they started for the distant city.

The Story Offers Some Explanations

 

    Lina, Gourry and Sylphiel stuck out badly in the city. They arrived at dusk and made a line for the first tavern they could find, and tried not ignore the fact that every one was staring at them. The fog had nearly completely faded from Nuriko’s head, much to his relief, leaving him with unanswered questions. However, it didn’t take any kind of brilliance to see that these people were not the ones to ask for answers. Their clothing was unlike any he had ever encountered, and they possessed magic of a far different nature than he was used to. He was quite positive he had been dead, there was no doubt about that, and he was equally sure that the black haired girl, Sylphiel, had been responsible for the changing of that status.

    In fact, Nuriko would have been extremely distressed about the whole situation if they didn’t seem like fundamentally good people. In addition, it helped that Lina ate in much the same way as Miaka, he thought as he sat watching her in the tavern. He tried not to think about Miaka, though, that had stung. She was happy, somewhere with Tahaome…no, with Taka, Nuriko was certain, and that was what he truly wanted, to see Miaka happy. When the way to make sure that happened was to get her home, Nuriko would have done anything…did do anything…to help her get home. Now that she was home, the key to her happiness was never having to worry about this world again.

    Lina finished dinner with her usual flourishes, and went to speak to the inn keeper. She managed to bargain a room out of the man that the four of them could share, but it wasn’t easy. He didn’t want the four strange looking people to be staying at his inn. Finally, though, they had a room, and they retreated to it to plot out the course for the next day. Lina was positive that of key importance was aquiring some new clothing for them, so they wouldn’t stick out quite so badly. After that, she wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t make up her mind how much to tell Nuriko. Nuriko, the first of the Suzaku Seishi ti die, made it possible for Miaka to get the Shinzaho. Given her prefrences, Lina wouldn’t tell Nuriko much of anything, except for the problem that Gourry was along. Lina was positive that sooner or later, he would say something, no matter how she explained it to him that he should keep his mouth shut. What to tell…she resolved to not deal with it right then, and to think about it and discuss it the next day.

    No one seemed to mind this unspoken decision, for no more serious conversation took place that night. Sylphiel was exhausted from the magic she had worked, Nuriko was still suffering dulled senses from his recovery from death, and Lina and Gourry had been walking all day through unpleasant terrain, leaving themachy and tired. Course left mostly unplotted, they all went to bed early, and slept well.

    The morning dawned clear and bright. Lina slept late, happy to have a full stomach and be in a comfortable bed, warm and comfy. When she finally awoke and stretched, she was surprised to see a stack of nearly folded clothing on a chair. Gourry and Sylphiel were still asleep, but Nuriko was nowhere to be seen, and Lina assumed he must have picked them all up some clothing, and then gone…somewhere. Lina donned one nice set of the local dress, bundling all her own clothing up in her cape and tied that up, leaving it next to the bed she had slept in. The clothing she had switched in to was comfortable and warm, snugly linedleggings and a loose tunic top, and a nice, furred, full length wrap around cloak to wear over it. Deciding not to wear the stupid bucket-like hat that went with the outfit, she went down to the common room to try and find Nuriko. Now seemed as a good a time as any to have that serious conversation about gods, miko’s, seishi, shinzaho’s and books.

    Nuriko was sitting downstairs with a mug of coffee in front of him. “Lina san! Good morning!” spotting Lina entering the common room, he waved at her cheerfully. She looked a tad grim, he observed, wondering what the cause of her distemper might be.

    Hearing Nuriko hail her, Lina walked over and joined him at the table. “Good morning, Nuriko,” she said, trying to keep concern out of her voice. She wasn’t looking forward to the coming conversation. It had to be done, because sooner or later he would find everything out anyway, there was no way Gourry could keep a secret, but that didn’t mean she wanted to hurry into it. “I…”

    “You look cute in that outfit,” he grinned. “I thought you might!” She noticed he was also trying to act light hearted, but the effort wasn’t totally successful. She wondered if she was doing such a lousy job. Several awkward moments of silence had Nuriko staring pensively into his mug, and several more had him talking again. “Lina, I’ve been wondering, where are you and your companions from? You don’t look like people from Miaka’s world…” and there was no question of their being from this world, and everyone knew that.

    “Well…” Lina took a deep breath. It made things considerably easier to have Nuriko bring this topic up. How to explain? “It doesn’t really matter where I’m from, basically I’m from neither Miaka’s world or this one, but a third one.” Nuriko looked about to interrupt, but Lina had started and wasn’t about to stop now, and kept talking. “This is accomplished through the power of ‘The Universe of Four Gods.’ In my world, and in Miaka’s, it’s a book until a girl who can be miko reads it. When this happens, the girl is drawn into the book, and anyone else who picks it up can read about that girls experiences in the book. This happened to me in my world about ten years ago, when I was a kid. I found a book in the library and I read the story of how the girl Miaka summoned Suzaku.”

    “So we all exist…with in this book, and no where else?” Disbelief shone in Nuriko’s eyes.

    “No, that’s not the way it works, I think the book is merely a gateway into this world from other worlds. Thus, any world where ‘The Universe of Four Gods’ exists can access this world, if the conditions are right. Does that make sense?”

    Nuriko nodded. “It actually makes a great deal of sense. Miaka never really talked about how she got here…knowing her, she didn’t think we’d understand, assumed we’d take it to mean we only exist in a book.”

    Lina smirked. “That’s what Tamahome assumed when he found out.” Nuriko laughed.

    “So wait,” a thought occurred to Nuriko, “When you said yesterday that you didn’t know anything about my circumstances, you lied?”

    With a nod, Lina explained, “you were just back from the dead, it didn’t seem to time to explain the details.” That brought a smile, also, and reminded Lina about something she’d been wondering. “So, how much of what you did as a ghost do you remember?”

    Considering that, Nuriko shrugged after a several beat pause. “I think at this point I remember nearly all of it. When I first woke up yesterday, everything was so foggy I hardly remember anything, but now that it’s all clear again, I remember Taka, and Miaka’s world, and Taitsukuun using Nyan Nyan’s to give us all bodies, and just about everything.”

    Relief filled Lina, and she laughed. “Wow, that was a lot easier than I expected.” She decided to refrain from the gods and Shinzaho parts of their serious discussion. Some other time, she told her self, all the hard stuff was over with.

    “Yeah, it’s pretty straight forward. Just one more question,” he looked her dead in the eye. “What’re you doing here? It seems to me that if you read about Miaka you knew about the spell on the book, so you didn’t fall in by accident, so that means you came here on purpose. The reason for that would be what, exactly?”

    A grimace worked hard to fight it’s way onto Lina’s face. Nuriko was smarter than she’d given him credit for. “Well…” this was too much like dealing with Zelgadis, she always ended up telling him everything. “See, I’m rather fond of money and magical…curiosities. I was planning to come into the book and get the Shinzaho, but the whole plan got messed up.” She pulled out her copy of “The Universe of Four Gods” and gave it to Nuriko. Seeing what it was, he looked at her n puzzlement. “That’s the copy I used to get here,” she explained. “It came with me for some reason. In addition, it brought over other people as well. It brought Gourry and Sylphiel, who were with me at the time I started reading, and I imagine it brought the other people who were with me here as well. I don’t know why it behaved that way, but it did.”

    “Can you get home?” asked a surprisingly concerned Nuriko.

    “I’m not sure, actually,” she never liked admitting that she didn’t know something. “I’m not sure at all. However, that’s not the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that apparently those that came with me are seishi. I’ve seen characters on both Gourry and Sylphiel.”

    “That is pretty weird! I’ve never heard of the seishi coming from a different world like a miko…ah!” mental skips in Nuriko’s thinking had meant something important had never registered before. “So, Lina, which miko are you? I thought all 4 gods had been summoned already!”

    Lina fingered the copy of “The Universe of Four Gods.” She wondered distantly if she would see it writing down her current conversation or not. “According to the book, I’m Genbu no Miko.” Nuriko nodded in understanding.

    “I see…since Genbu was summoned so long ago, it must be time to summon him again. That makes a great deal of sense.”

    From there the conversation meandered into other veins, talking about nothing in particular. It felt really weird to Lina, talking to this person she had read so much about. Time passed. After a while, Sylphiel joined them, then Gourry. They chatted companiably about nothing in particular, and finally got to the issue of what they were going to do that day. The one thing they had decided the previous day, to track down new clothes, was already a moot point due to Nuriko’s incredibly tasteful clothes shopping for the three of them, but that left them all at a bit of a loss.

    “Well, unlike with past miko’s who were hotly anticipated, no one knows I’m here, so we can’t expect anyone to be looking for me.” Lina sighed. “I guess out only choice is to try and find the others.”

    “Lina san, do you think we can assume Zelgadis san, Amelia san, and all the others were also brought here?” asked a demure Sylphiel.

    Lina nodded. “If you and Gourry were both brought here along with me, there’s no reason to think the others weren’t. Also, there is the matter of the Genbu Shichi Seishi to consider.”

    “Shichi seishi?” asked the as-always puzzled Gourry. “Ah! Those were the people you said…something about before, and…I forgot.” This fact did not seem to bother him in the slightest.

    A witty reply was just coming to Lina’s lips when it was interrupted by a voice from the direction of the door. “Lina san, I finally found you!” The silloutte resolved itself into the writer, holding her book before her, busily writing. “I was so scared! Why does ever girl in ‘Universe of Four Gods’ have to have a rape scene? It’s weird! Thank god I’m writing and…and…” her eyes fell on Nurko. “…and…and…and…” shock filled her face.

    “Aha!” Gourry exclaimed. “Her eyes started out of her head and she got a sound effect!”

    “You’re Nuriko, right?” watching the steady nod frrom Nuriko, the writer fell into a swoon. My beloved person, Nuriko sama…before she could hit the floot, steady, strong arms caught her.

    “Are you alright?” It was Sakamoto Chika, but not out of female lungs. It really was Nuriko. And he was alive!

    “Uh…I’ll be fine. Thank you….” now her eyes had gained anime-style inner stars as well. “I…” she looked up at Nuriko with a rather incredible expression, a mixture of love, joy, and shock. “Umm…I…”

    “Gah…enough with all this!” Lina interrupted in exasperation. “Writer, how did you find us, and how did you know who he was???”

    With remarkable speed, the writer recovered, withdrew from Nuriko’s arms that had so easily caught her (albiet reluctantly) and sat down at the table with them.

    “Well…uh…” her backbone-in-development, so recently strengthened by her victory over the would-be rapists, had been destroyed for now by being held by Nuriko sama, but she was determined not to appear a complete loser. “I found you guys by writing that I found you. I dunno why, but it worked. Against the thugs that attacked me earlier too.” Now for the hard part, how to explain knowledge of Nuriko. “As for knowing who Nuriko was, I guess…” she paused, fishing for words. “”Fushigi Yuugi.”

    “Mysterious Play?” a very puzzled Sylphiel translated the name, trying to see if the English helped it make sense.

    “What does that have to do with anything?” Lina demanded crossly.

    Backbone melted and the writer quavered. “Uh…just a show I saw once. It told the story of a girl, Miaka, and her quest to summon Suzaku, and Nuriko was of course in it, so of course I know of his existence and the story of Miaka’s journey and everything.”

    “You knew that all along?!” a little explosion went off above Lina’s head.

    “Uh…yeah…” the writer cringed.

    Lina smacked her forehead in despair. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter…”

    Nuriko had spent the conversation staring at the writer. Finally he summed up his observations. “You’re from a completely different world, aren’t you.”

    “Huh?” the writer looked up in surprise. “How…?”

    “You’re not from here, you’re not from Miaka’s world, but you don’t really resemble Lina and her companions either.” The writer blushed under Nuriko’s scrutiny.

    A puzzled Lina echoed the writer. “How…?” she asked the writer.

    For several moments, the writer sat tall, in proud defiance of Nuriko’s assertion, but she gave up and crumpling back into her chair. “It’s true. I come from a world that can open small windows to other worlds through books and shows. In that way I observed both Lina san’s and Miaka san’s worlds,” seeing the questions in everyones faces, she added, “I got here by writing.” She picked up her pen and wrote in her book, ‘I wish I wasn’t in Bio lecture, I wish…I wish…”

    “Look!” Gourry exclaimed. Since the conversation had completely left him behind, he had let his eyes wander, and so was the first to notice. “Her hand!”

    On the hand with which she wrote, on the back of it, a black glowing kanji character clearly marked her as one of the Genbu seishi.

    They finished a meal in silence. Lina already had three of her seven seishi with her, all was going well. “I’d say we have to move on now,” she said.

    “Lina?” Gourry asked.

    “I don’t think we’ll find any more of the seven in Hokkan. We aughta travel and see what we find.”

    “Trouble?” suggested everyone else simultaneously.

    “Shut up,” Lina replied.

**Author's Note:**

> In the long run I'd like to share more of my older work, as I find the time and energy to type it up or am able to scrounge files from my computer. I had previously shared The Lost Generation, which is the second novel I ever finished and was written from 2005 to 2007, started when I was 22. It's the only thing I wrote that was fic and that was long, though, and I thought...well, I think in the same way it helps young artists to see where popular artists started compared to how they art now, it might help young writers or novice writers to see where a popular author started? Am I popular? God I don't even know.
> 
> So yeah.
> 
> I'll add new chapters to this with other short pieces as I scrounge them up. That's it. :)


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